HIT EXPRESS [1982]

All fourteen songs on K-Tel's Hit Express rate among my favorites and if I had to choose a weak link, I'd go with "Did It In A Minute" from Hall & Oates.  Hoping this one does well on the K-Tel Scale™ because the album is a sentimental favorite, I'm just not sure on how well some of the songs did on the Top 40 chart.  Know both the first and last tracks were Number Ones - just wrote about them both (and a few other of the tracks on Hit Express) over on My Top 100 Favorite Singles of 1982.  The timing is right that the majority of these songs should make Billboard's Top Tracks chart with maybe a couple crossing over to the Adult Contemporary chart as well.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's watch the commercial for the album while I regroup.

Hit Express was registered with the US Copyright Office as one of a group of four K-tel albums on July 8, 1982 and is the last of the group to be featured here on the Kollection.  As you may have noticed in the commercial, K-Tel was having another one of its sales campaigns, Festival Of Sound. Further research into this campaign yielded this:

It may not look like nothing more than a simple poster but is actually an album sleeve for a special promo sampler K-Tel shipped to record stores for the Holiday Shopping Season of 1982.  The back of the sleeve is actually die-cut so that it folds out to be a stand so that retailers could just place the sleeve on their counter like a standee.  This rare album currently is available online from $30-$120.

The album's labels don't list the songs on the album but they do list the K-Tel albums the songs are from and as fate would have it, the first four titles listed are the four titles up next on the Kollection. The one title that won't be appearing here is Rock N Roll Fever, a 40 song double album compilation of Fifties and Sixties hits that will be featured during the upcoming Rush Week over at The Hideaway featuring "frat rock" style compilations inspired by the film Animal House.  Now that we know just a little bit more about Festival Of Sound, let's back to today's featured album, Hit Express.

Note the remnants of the holographic anti-counterfeit strip located on the upper left of the back cover just below the word HIT.  Pretty great artwork and layout in my opinion.  Hit Express is available with Lotus or K-Tel labels:

HIT EXPRESS [1982]							29.39
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	COU	R&B	DISCO	Rock	AC	CB
Don't You Want Me	Human League	1			3	4		1
Do You Believe In Love	Huey Lewis & the News	7				12		13
(Oh) Pretty Woman	Van Halen	12				1		10
Did It In A Minute	Hall & Oates	9					29	10
Don't Stop Believin'	Journey	9				8		8
Urgent	Foreigner	4			32	1		5
In The Air Tonight	Phil Collins	19				2		19
Spirits In The Material World	The Police	11				7		15
Love Is Alright Tonite	Rick Springfield	20				40		27
Tonight I'm Yours (Don't Hurt Me)	Rod Stewart	20				29		15
Hold On Tight	Electric Light Orchestra	10				2		8
Abacab	Genesis	26			(43)	4		40
Working For The Weekend	Loverboy	29				2		25
I Love Rock N Roll	Joan Jett & the Blackhearts	1			31	1		1

Disappointing score though I was right about the Number Ones and the Rock crossover.  Unfortunately I was also correct guessing that there would not be much other crossover action on the charts.  Disco?  Hit Express managed seven Top 10s and twelve Top 20s.  To see what would happen, I reworked the Scale to make the Rock chart the primary scoring chart and downgraded the Pop chart accordingly and still only came up with a score of 31.11 which would have been up to two points higher if "Did It In A Minute" had made the Rock chart.  Knew I disliked that song for a perfectly sane and rational reason.  Though I couldn't find any images of them, Hit Express is also available on 8-track and cassette.

Hit Express also had a Canadian route with sixteen tracks, only four of which were also on the American version of the album so that's a total of twenty-six unique songs between the two albums. There was less Rock chart crossover and more R&B and AC action though.  All but two of the songs made the Top 40 here in the states and it really didn't score too much lower than the US configuration.  Hit Express, the Canadian edition, is also available on cassette and 8-track tapes. 

HIT EXPRESS [1982] CAN							27.53
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	COU	R&B	DISCO	Rock	AC	CB
Love Is Alright Tonite	Rick Springfield	20				40		27
867-5309/Jenny	Tommy Tutone	4				1		5
Six Months In A Leaky Boat	Split Enz							(81)
Super Freak	Rick James	16		3	1			17
Fantasy	Aldo Nova	23				3		24
Letting Go	Straight Lines
Who Can It Be Now?	Men At Work	1			33	(46)		1
Working For The Weekend	Loverboy	29				2		25
My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)	Chilliwack	22				16		19
Don't Stop Believin'	Journey	9				8		8
I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)	Hall & Oates	1		1	1	28	12	1
The One That You Love	Air Supply	1					2	1
'65 Love Affair	Paul Davis	6					5	10
Oh No	Commodores	4		5			5	4
Spirits In The Material World	The Police	11				7		15
I've Never Been To Me	Charlene	3					7	3

Though the players below look similar, they are actually two different shows based on Hit Express.  The first one is from our now dormant friend Show N K-Tel and the second is from Bruce David Janu and his Adventures in Vinyl show from Vinyl Voyage Radio.